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Not all rapes reported equally

Rape was the most under-reported news story of 2014. Not misreported rape — cases that were splashed over the media but on investigation didn’t turn out the way they were at first presented.

There were plenty of misreported rape stories in 2014 – like Rolling Stone magazine’s cover story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia that has been widely discredited with the magazine acknowledging the discrepancies. Or actress Lena Dunham’s rape story in her own autobiography that her publisher has had to clarify used a pseudonym when naming the accused assailant.

But real rapes were ignored by the western media, especially the mass rapes committed by Islamic State terrorists across Syria and Iraq. Those rapes are not incidental to the war there; they are a central part of it. They are an official part of it.